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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Double Clutches Heading East

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When I was growing up in Santa Fe, I learned to drive on a manual transmission car. I worked at the golf course when I was 15 and used to drive an old truck from time to time. I think it was an old big tire truck they picked up cheaply that became a utility/maintenance truck on the golf course. When I'd change gears and sometimes I just couldn't find the right one and would have to double clutch--keep moving the stick around and pumping the clutch until I found the gear I was looking for.

That was a little like what happened when we went to leave yesterday morning.

Kelly was going to go on ahead and continue toward Virginia Beach. We were heading east also, only peeling off I-40E and heading to Red Bay Alabama. She slept in past 8:00 before we all got in motion and started packing up.

I managed to get a couple of last photos of our campground at Plantation Place.

When we were ready we said our goodbye's, and Ed jumped into the back seat of her car and was ready to roll. Only the her car wouldn't start. What?

No problem -- I have 20 foot jumper cables that reached from the battery rack on the Roadrunner to her car with ease. I dug those out and in 15 minutes she was on her way. She was going to find a WalMart along I-30E and get a new battery just in case.

Next, I completed stowing the hoses and cords, Pam raised the jacks and we were ready to go. Or were we?
Our HWH panel inside showed a lot of blinking lights and when I put the coach in gear, it beeped loudly....
Time to put it back in neutral, reapply the air brake and see what's up. Sure enough, the rear jack on the DS was not completely retracted. 15 months ago this happened and we had no idea what to do...

Instead of getting excited and panicking...we just lowered the jacks again, go it set up, and then went through the process again to raise them. This time it worked like a champ. And we were on our way.

We drove about 15 minutes before Kelly called and said she found a WalMart near the freeway. We kept in touch with her and kept going. A couple of hours later she caught up to us when we were filling up at a Flying J truck stop.

Then she went on ahead.

We passed a milestone while Pam was at the wheel.

We passed the 40,000 mile mark on the Roadrunner.

We bought it with 21,156 miles on it in May 2009.

We stopped for the night on the east side of Memphis at EZ Daze RV park in Southhaven, MS. Nice place!

Full hookups and level, concrete sites for $32/night. It wasn't a real long day but long enough - 462 miles to get here. We were ready to park it. We only have about 3 hours left to get to Red Bay Alabama.

Kelly stopped for the night near Nashville and will get to NC tomorrow to see her friend.